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Tell me about composting...
Ok, so I've been researching composing online, but am still very confused! I need some nestie help! In our house, we do not have a garbage disposal and I hate throwing away "scraps" of food. I understand that you can keep your scrap food in a bin and then add it to your composter as needed and then add a layer of "brown". I read that you cannot add meat to compost. So, what do I do if I have soup or chili that I need to get rid of? I'm afraid that I will add something to the composter that is not supposed to be in there! For example...as I said above, soups or spaghetti or just leftover misc. foods.
Sorry for the rambling!! Anyone who can give me advice, please chime in! What do I need to get started?? Is it expensive up front?
Thanks!!
Re: Tell me about composting...
Hi there! Here's my short explanation of composting. We bought a $25 composting bin from Craiglist. If you look at the backyard photo in my bio (really outdated, sorry), it's the doghouse-looking green thing. We scraped the grass off a segment of our yard, and placed the composter there. The rhyme is "equal parts green and brown help to break the compost down." So we add all our kitchen scraps (those are greens), and shredded leaves or newspaper (brown). You can Google other types of greens and browns. We stir after every addition using our garden shovel, and add water about once a week or so. I have a tub sitting under our patio furniture to catch rainwater, I normally empty that in the compost. It should be moist, like a damp sponge. We got finished compost after about 6 months, and now that it's really going (we're in year 3) I regularly take a tub of compost out of it to add to our raised beds or front decorative plants. Everything is growing like gangbusters, and we've reduced our landfill impact by a significant amount.
We bought this compost crock for holding scraps, I wanted something pretty. But any sealed container will work. Composting is easier than you think!
I wouldn't worry at all about "screwing up" your compost pile, that's not really possible unless you put something that reaallly shouldn't be in there, like meat scraps. They smell when they decompose, and attract animals. Really, you're just making a place for organic material to rot. You can't really mess up letting something rot.We add kitchen scraps pretty much every day, and a big pile of browns every once and awhile when we rake or have brown paper. We have awesome compost. Try not to think about it too much, it's just rotting organic matter
I'm in your boat. We're moving soon, and I'm so excited to be able to start composting but I got really nervous about it.
Then I realized, being nervous about a natural process is among the *dumbest* thing to spend energy worrying about. Buy or build a bin, throw stuff in there (there are cheat sheets you can print out about what you can and can't compost... print one out and post it). There are conflicting reports as to whether or not you're supposed to put equal amounts of green and brown, but equal parts seem to work fine for most people. So, throw it in there, mix, water, and be done.
Also, it shouldn't smell. If your compost pile smells, there's an unbalance of something.
You'll be fine!
Not caring about missing RSVPs because there aren't any rocks!
Perhaps a silly question, but why are you throwing away so much food?
My first thought to your post was "hmm what do I do with those things?" but really, we eat them - not toss them. If you're just talking about the bits on your plate, I would scrape them in the trash, but if you're throwing out leftovers, I'd try to cook portions more appropriate to what you actually eat. The scraps we compost come from food prep, not leftover from after dinner.
Composting doesn't have to be expensive. We made our pile from old soda pallets - and they were free. Check craigslist. Here is my blog post about our bin.
I thought this too. I eat my leftover soup or chili. If you have so much leftovers that they go bad before you can eat them, then I would think about cooking smaller portions. Our kitchen scraps also come from food prep. Like onion tops and bottoms, pepper stems and ribs, garlic & onion skins, and asparagus stems. We scrape the bits on our plate into the trash or let the dog clean our plates as a treat.
I cook big batches of soup and sauce - but then I split it into meals and freeze while it's fresh.
I did a bunch of reading about composting, and here's what I found: everything works. If it'll rot, it will compost eventually. Following the rules might get you compost in 6 months; not caring will get you compost in 9.
Just find a spot and go for it.